


Holding Hands and Tipping Cows

by Musicalrain



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Origin Story, Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition, Rare Pairings, Spirit Animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 21:27:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7480770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Musicalrain/pseuds/Musicalrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bowen Cadash finds herself wounded and stranded in Ferelden after a darkspawn attack - and winds up on the Rutherford Family's farm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holding Hands and Tipping Cows

**Author's Note:**

> My muse got attacked by this one. :)
> 
> \----
> 
> Please note, in this AU everyone has a spirit animal.
> 
> Enjoy!

The dirty fletching of a poisoned arrow stuck out between bronto-hide covered shoulderblades, blinded by the soot of a mage-fire, and bleeding a trail of bright crimson blood on pristine white cobbles, Bowen hobbles towards the farmstead she’d seen at a distance after escaping the massacre of her men at the hands of twisted creatures her ancestors fought for centuries.

 

She collapses on the cottage stair with her last sight of blonde hair framing worried green eyes set in a human’s face.

 

As her sight failed her, she hears Alice’s pained roar in the distance echoing in her ears and cradling her into the darkness.

 

* * *

 

 

The room she wakes up in is unfamiliar, but that’s a dull thought in the back of her head compared to the burning sensation in her back and the echos of pain in her connection with Alice. Her armor’s gone, she hurts, but, fortunately she thinks, her axe is leaned up against the wall within arm’s reach of the bed she’s lain in. She recognizes it as the gesture of goodwill it is, and relaxes some as she settles under the heavy blankets piled on her.

 

She doesn’t have to wait long for her host to pop her head in the room - a young woman with blonde hair twisted in a long neat plait and those green eyes from her last memories set below a rather messy set of bangs. The woman’s choice in clothing is just as mismatched as her hair, and she sees her trailed by a stark black weasel with a white patch of fur on her chin. The woman’s spirit animal scurries onto the bed while the woman shuffles her way over, equal parts cautious and concerned.

 

“How are you feeling?” She asks, softly.

 

“Alive,” Bowen cracks out in a weak voice. “Where’s my spirit animal? I feel… She’s hurt.” She hates how vulnerable she sounds, but Alice feels worse off than she does, and if this woman’s treated her, hopefully she’ll see to Alice as well.

 

“The dragon?” The woman’s eyes go round with worry. “Mother’s seeing to her in the fields with Branson. Father’s patrolling the fields for more darkspawn.”

 

She sucks in a sharp breath at the mention of the ‘spawn. “You’ve seen them?”

 

The woman shakes her head, “No, but while you were unconscious we heard word of Ostagar falling to the creatures. The King, Maker guide him, fell.” She leans over to pat her weasel on the head from where she’s curled in the crook of one of her elbows in the blankets. “Were you a soldier there?”

 

She shakes her head, and regrets the movement as it pulls at the stitches in her back, “On my way to Gwaren from Orzammar. My crew ran into the things. Didn’t expect them on the surface.” She pauses. “Alice and I are the only ones who made it out.”

 

The woman’s face falls into a frown. “That’s awful. I’m sorry, I-” It’s her turn to pause while she takes a moment to gather her thoughts. The woman meets Bowen’s gaze and stretches out a hand, “For what it’s worth, you’re safe here. My family won’t turn away someone in need.” She brings her hand closer for Bowen to shake, “I’m Rosalie Rutherford.”

 

Bowen struggles to sit up and doesn’t gain much leverage before her stitches pull too much, but takes the woman’s hand gratefully. “Bowen Cadash, and I can’t tell you how much this all means.” She can already feel some of the panic leaching from her connection with Alice. “We owe you something big for the help.”

 

The woman, Rosalie, shakes her head sadly. “There’s nothing needed; all we’d want is for you both to be well.”

 

* * *

 

 

By the time Bowen can strap on her armor without pain, and walk out to the barn that Alice is holed up in, she doesn’t leave for Gwaren or the Marches beyond, no, she doesn’t know exactly why but she opts stay on the Rutherford farmstead.

 

Well, she thinks, that’s not entirely true because there’s more of a list of reasons why she stays.

 

The first reason is because the senior Rutherford asked her to. “My youngest, Cullen, is the warrior in the family,” he says. “And boy’s not in the Chantry no more. They sent him off to the Circle last spring, and we’ve got no one here to protect the farm. Brutus isn’t as young as he was, and I’m ‘fraid it’s been years since I’ve used a blade for anything other than cutting twine or the like.”

 

His wife offers to pay her, but she insists that she’s indebted to them enough as it is, and being a guard for them is the least she can do. It’s unlike her, but, well, she hasn’t met kindness and easy acceptance like this outside of Alice, and the big lizard is her spirit animal, so she has no choice but to like her.

 

The next, and probably most crucial reason on her list of reasons to stay, is that she’s come to enjoy Rosalie’s company. Her rodent’s grown on her too. She knows she’d be saddened not to see her again. And she doesn’t really understand why, and thinks that they might be friends, but she knows she’d feel this way all the same.

 

The last reason is that Alice’s wings are still too damaged from mage-fire to fly. She doesn’t think a ship captain would agree to ferry a full-grown, if on the small side, dragon all the way across the Waking Sea, and Bowen’s not leaving her spirit animal behind to heal without her while a Blight’s on.

 

So, Bowen stays.

 

* * *

 

 

“You know what they say about people with dragons for spirit animals,” Rosalie says to her conversationally while they collect eggs from rather cross chickens at an hour way too early for any sane person, in Bowen’s opinion.

 

Bowen loudly curses a particularly cranky hen’s ancestors before grunting, “No, what do they say?”

 

Rosalie smothers a laugh behind her hand while Bowen rubs at her pecked fingers, and says, voice muffled, “That they’re destined for great things. ‘S why they’re so rare.” There’s a teasing in her voice when she adds, “But I can’t see you amounting to anything if a chicken can get the best of you.”

 

The weasel, Hazelnut, carefully places an egg in Bowen’s basket between fanged teeth, whiskers twitching in satisfaction. The smile can be heard in Bowen’s voice when she counters. “Don’t need to be better than a chicken when I have clever friends who are.”

 

* * *

 

 

She’s in the hayloft with Alice when she hears them enter the barn.

 

“I didn’t tell you to upset you, Rose,” an unfamiliar voice says, and there’s a squall of a babe that has Bowen carefully peeking her head over the planks at the edge of the loft. There’s a woman there cradling a wrapped bundle in her arms. She’s older than Rosalie but not as old as Mama Janey, as Bowen’s taken to calling her. She’s just as blonde and tall as her friend though, and she wonders who she is to her.

 

“Sister Reba gave me the missive, and I came straight here. I’d’ve told Parents first if they weren’t in the fields. Saved you the grief.” The woman turns some, and she notices the sparrow perched on her shoulder, and Bowen swears the bird’s dark eyes meet hers across the distance. She gets the distinct impression she’s being judged.

 

“But Cullen,” Rosalie hiccups, and Bowen’s attention quickly switches to her distraught friend. “Did she… did she say he lives?”

 

The older woman nods, though the motion somehow looks sad. “George too. She said they’re in a state though. Wouldn’t tell me what she meant by that, but that they’re stable.” She can see her face screw up from this distance. “For a Chantry Lady, she really needs to work on her comforting skills.”

 

Rosalie laughs a watery laugh, and Bowen has the sudden urge to climb down the ladder and give her a hug. “Thank you for telling me, Mia. I know - I know I’m not the best about handling this kind of news, but I appreciate knowing, you know?”

 

The woman, Mia it seems, reaches a comforting hand out to lay at Rosalie’s shoulder beside where Hazelnut has curled around her neck. “I know, Sister. Having him away like this isn’t easy on any of us.”

 

That night, Bowen sits on the roof with Rosalie telling her stories about her adventures pedaling surfacer wears to Deshyrs with more gold than sense. She leaves out _why_ she does that for a living, and she doesn’t realise until later that she’s ashamed of her life in the Carta, and didn’t even realise it was something shameful until she’s been around this wholesome, hardworking family. She feels like scum, later, but at the time she revels in the laughs Rosalie graces her with.

 

There’s still sadness in her friend’s eyes in the dwindling sunlight, a worry for her brother that Bowen can’t ease, but she tries, and it’s in this trying that she comes to know how much she cares for this woman.

 

* * *

 

 

Darkspawn skirmishes are becoming more frequent, and even with Alice flying about, each battle is hardwon to keep the farm free of their Taint.

 

They haven’t come in droves, not like the mess of them that had crossed paths with her crew in the wake of Ostagar, and nearly spilled over onto the Rutherford’s land, but it’s still a tough job on two hands, well hands and talons, to keep the creatures at bay.

 

“You need help,” Rosalie all but declares one evening while she helps patch a bit of Alice’s armor while Bowen tends to her own in the light of the fire she’d set.  

 

“My people have been fighting these things for longer than anyone can remember,” Bowen grunts, and takes a moment to swipe sweaty dark curls from her forehead. She doesn’t want to think about what kind of viscera is plastered in her hair. She’s only grateful that she keeps it shorn relatively short so it won’t be too much of a hassle to clean, unlike all of her armor _and_ her double-bearded axe. “Dwarva are made for this.”

 

“That might be true,” she can see Rosalie narrow peridot eyes at her. “But you have no one but Alice, and they just keep coming. You have to admit that this is a lot, protecting our land single-handedly.”

 

It is, but she won’t admit it. “If I don’t, you’ll be overrun in a fortnight.”

 

“And if you die, _what then_?” Bowen whips her head around to stare at the blonde, surprised at the heat in her voice. “You need help, Bowen,” Rosalie drops the bit of leather she was working on to grasp the other woman’s hands. “Let me help you. I may not come from a family of darkspawn slayers, but my family’s full of warriors and farmers. I can be both. Teach me. Let me help you - help protect my family. Please.”

 

In truth, she doesn’t think it’s a good idea, but she agrees to teach her all the same.

 

* * *

 

 

Bowen may teach Rosalie the art of martial combat, but she outright refuses to allow the green warrior to engage the darkspawn in battle. It’s too dangerous with the high potency of Taint driven by Blight, and the dark creatures are far too vicious by nature. It’s too much for a woman using her father’s sword, the blade balanced for a person both taller and broader, and a woman with ill-fitting armor that has seen better days as her only protection.

 

Bowen has Alice, too, and although Hazelnut may be crafty and clever, she’s no dragon with firebreath and fangs longer than her arm.

 

Bowen’s under no illusion that Rosalie is outmatched with the ‘spawn, but that doesn’t seem to be knowledge held by the woman herself.

 

“I asked to learn to _help_ ,” Rosalie stresses, anger and frustration in every syllable. They’re at the edge of her family’s property, dead darkspawn in various states spread out like a halo of gristle and gore around where Bowen and Alice stand. If Bowen cares to admit, all the fighting has improved her own skills, but despite her capabilities as a fighter, it’s another matter to take an unseasoned warrior with her against the things.

 

She can’t protect her, that’s the thing.

 

“I know that, Sweetheart,” Bowen huffs, plunking her axe down heavily in the ichor-stained earth. “But you can’t take the ‘spawn. They’d eat you alive.”

 

“But you won’t even let me try!” She throws up her hands. “How do you know I can’t fight them if you won’t let me come with you?”

 

“I’m your tutor. I know.” Bowen sighs, and looks away. She takes her time in unbuckling her helm and straps it to Alice’s harness for easy transport. By the time she turns around, the taller woman has come up behind her, weasel poking her head out from the pack at her hip with whiskers twitching in visible discomfort.

 

Rosalie is frowning, and obviously trying to think of some rebuttal that isn’t the same. Bowen looks up at the human with her own frown pulling at her thin lips. “Look, Rosalie,” at her name the woman’s frown thins into a line. “I can’t guarantee that you’ll come out unscathed against the things. They’re tough, not saying that you’re not, but they’re tougher. I won’t risk it.”

 

She thinks she’ll say something, argue for her right to fight, but she simply stares at her for a long moment, green eyes sparkling with heat and something that reminds her of the eldest Rutherford daughter and her nosy sparrow, and when she does speak, it’s not what she’d expected.

 

“I worry for you too, Bowen.”

 

* * *

 

 

Bowen makes it up to her friend by taking her flying.

 

It’s not something that many people do, seeing as all dragons that don’t share souls with a person are wild untameable things, but it’s something Bowen has been fortunate enough to share with Alice ever since the scrawny thing grew into her wings.

 

Rosalie _loves it_ , if her cackling and whoops of pure delight are anything to go by. Her rodent just looks like a black ball of fuzz plopped on coppery smooth scales at first glance, but she’s enjoying herself, and so is her other half. Bowen helplessly smiles at Hazelnut as she's just a shivering ball of excitement wrapped around one of Alice’s stout horns at the crown of her head.

 

At a deep dip and a teasing roar from Alice, Rosalie squeals and clings to Bowen’s shoulders. “Holy Andraste’s knicker-weasels! Let’s do that again!”

 

“Alice,” Bowen says warningly to her dragon. “Let’s not try to buck them off, girl. Got that?”

 

“Oh, don’t be like that,” Rosalie admonishes with a light smack at her shoulder. “We’re having fun!”

 

Their fun is short-lived, however, when they catch sight of a caravan being overrun by darkspawn.

 

And Rosalie finally has her chance to prove her worth as a warrior.

 

* * *

 

 

“Your father about tanned my hide.”

 

Rosalie smiles up at her from where she’s laying, sprained ankle propped against cushions and cracked ribs wrapped with elfroot salve spread thickly over bruised skin. All things considered, the injuries Rosalie sustained were lucky.

 

“He wouldn’t do that. He likes you.”

 

Bowen snorts with the vestiges of disbelief, but sits beside her heavily at Rosalie’s encouraging gesture.

 

And Rosalie adds, while taking her hand with a shy blush staining high on her cheeks like the colored powders noble ladies use, “I like you, too.”

 

* * *

 

 

When Rosalie kisses her for the first time, she really should have seen it coming. They’ve been dancing around each other for so long after all.

 

She looks more lovely than any high-brow Orlesian lady with a fresh bruise on her jaw, a healing scar at the crease of one eye, and the high of battle-fueled adrenaline lighting her green eyes. The marks of a warrior, of an equal, of a woman damned-bent on protecting what’s _hers_.

 

Bowen thinks she might be lucky enough to be counted amongst one of those things.

 

With the memory of her chapped lips pressed against hers, teeth clacking together at the rush of the movement, and the fading heat of it, Bowen thinks she just may have the chance to be.

 

* * *

 

 

“I have to go home.”

 

Rosalie looks up at her from where she’s sprawled on the rug in front of the fireplace, Hazelnut curled against her belly in a content little ball, with blatant surprise. “I’m sorry, but _what_?”

 

“The Blight’s over,” Bowen says by way of explanation, and slowly settles herself beside her lover.

 

“I’m well aware,” Rosalie raises the mug full of Branson’s stashed wine in reminder of the celebration her family held. Everyone’s retired to their rooms, or in Branson’s case, he headed to the city with Mia and her husband to continue in revelry. “But what does that have to do with anything? Isn’t your home here?”

 

She looks so confused, eyes glazed with wine and relief, and Bowen feels such a strong affection for her in that moment, but the stark reality of her situation is clear to her even so.

 

“I know it’s been some time,” Bowen smiles, though it’s sad. “But without the Blight, I have no excuse to stay here.”

 

“Um, aren’t you able to choose where or where not you’re to stay, Blights or no Blights?”

 

“My family will look for me,” Bowen says after a moment. Then questions, “What do you know about the Carta?”

 

“Isn’t that a dwarven mercenary group?” Rosalie’s face is a jumble of emotions and the shadows of flickering thoughts. “What do they have to do with any this?”

 

Bowen turns towards her, and slowly takes the mug of wine from her hand. She scoots close to the other woman, unafraid but ashamed. “My family’s been on the surface a long time. A long, long time. Long enough to establish themselves in a certain way in the Marches. There’s certain expectations, and our bloodline is indebted, it’s… it’s why I learned to fight.”

 

“Are you saying that you’re Carta?” Rosalie questions slowly.

 

“Blood and bone,” Bowen quips, but it lacks any levity. “I have to go back, or they’ll _look_ for me, do you understand?”

 

Rosalie’s expression slowly turns from confused, to hurt, to angry, but, shockingly to her lover, not at Bowen. “They would _force_ you?” She sits up, dislodging the sleeping Hazelnut on her stomach. “Last I heard, slavery was illegal in the South.”

 

“That’s not…” Bowen trails off and shakes her head. “Look, think of it this way - this’ll be the last thing I do to protect your family.”

 

“That’s brontoshit.” Rosalie’s face is getting redder by the second, the pearly white of her scar bright against her flush skin, and Bowen knows she’ll miss her spirit like nothing else.

 

“I won’t let them hurt you to get to me. I’m indebted to them. I don’t have a choice.”

 

“There’s always a choice,” Rosalie declares vehemently. There’s a beat, then she says. “I’ll go with you.”

 

“No, Rosalie, no,” Bowen shakes her head. “You can’t.”

 

“Don’t think there’s anything that dictates that I can’t,” she huffs. “Besides, Cullen’s in Kirkwall now, and with you, it won’t be like I’ll be alone.” She takes her hand, and leans into her shoulder with her expression settling into one of resolute determination. “With you, I’ll have everything, I swear it.”

 

* * *

 

 

_Years Later_

 

“The Herald of Andraste,” the man says, large lion curled against his legs, equal parts intimidating and protective. “What exactly does that make my sister then, hm?”

 

Bowen can’t help the sly smile that graces her face as the woman beside them questions, “Your sister, Commander?”

 

“Oh, yes.” He blinks at her, “This is my sister-in-law, Bowen. She’s married to-”

 

“Rosalie, serrah,” Bowen turns at the sound of the familiar voice, beyond relieved to see that her wife yet lives in the wake of the Conclave. She had worried, but Rosalie had opted to stay in the company of her baby brother to catch up with him while Bowen had gone ahead, fulfilling the last of her debt to the Carta. She’s free of them, now, and by extension, so is Rosalie.

 

Life hadn’t been easy for the two of them in the Marches, these years past, and Bowen has often regretted allowing her to go with, but now they’re free of that life. And here, perhaps she can fulfill that promise of greatness Rosalie had expected of her so long ago.

 

They’re calling her the Herald of Andraste, after all, and maybe that can mean more than speculation and fear.

 

“I think that makes me blessed, Brother.”


End file.
